


Project: K-con

by LordGrimwing



Series: No Home Stories [11]
Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Bomb, K-class, techicons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 09:40:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12454671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordGrimwing/pseuds/LordGrimwing
Summary: Now that he can't have an army of predicons to win the war, Megatron has agreed to Shockwave's new plan. Turn the weak, weaponless, techicons that maintain the ship into walking bomb.





	Project: K-con

_Entry… what? 500 and 82? Something like that._

_Once again, Megatron’s_ illustrious _schemes have backfired on us all. The destruction of the predicon clones was a waist. Our_ magnificent _leader and that retched Shockwave, thought it would rid the Decepticons of a future usurper. While it has—for now—turned the beast’s ire unto the Autobot fools, it won’t be long before he is sniffing out Megatron’s subterfuge. And beyond that! Beyond that, that insipid genius Shockwave failed to mention something. Apparently, it wasn’t worth our time to know that one of his precious predicons had already emerged. Now I have two raging beasts to keep an optic on, and the new one can’t even come on The Nemesis! Our prestigious leader fears that letting Prediking know of its existence would again cause him to think of insurrection._

_AND, now Shockwave can’t work on his ‘pet project.’ By Primus, that mech is worse than Knockout without Breakdown! Not only does he always need some horrid project to have his servos in, he must insist on reporting only to Megatron! The nerve! He’s working on some military developments, but refuses to tell me—THE AIR-COMMANDER—about it!_

_*humf*_

_Starscream out._

{In a non-descried canyon on Earth}

The stone ground let off shimmers of heat as the sun sank behind the barren ridges, the sky turning pink. Here and there, small reptiles dashed between brittle bushes. The silence and tranquility of the sunset was interrupted only by a swirling vortex of light, and even to any average person, this too would have looked beautiful. The three towering machines that stepped forth from it would assuredly have ruined that.

A Cybertronian, or a few select humans, would have recognized the ground bridge for what it was. To those beings, the three transformers who appeared would have been quite the letdown. They were all tan, and only about ten feet tall. No wings, no wheel, no weapons. The trio was the epitome of Decepticon technicons. Even a half-blind orangutan could tell they were not fighters.

The first out, and shortest of the three twisted in a circle to see his surroundings. “Wow!” was his exclamation. “Wow! Mechs—mechs, can you believe we’re actually out here?!”

The last out, and tallest grinned—an ability that most made-to-order Decepticons lacked. “It’s almost circuit frying Axis.” He agreed. “We finally get to do something that really helps the war effort! What do you think Fulcrum?” The two turned to their companion, who was scanning the terrain from behind adjustable goggles.

“I don’t like it.” He replied, fists finding their way onto his narrow hips.

“Ha!” The first laughed, patting Fulcrum’s skinny shoulder with an equally skinny hand. “If it’s organic you hate it. Am I right Pivot or am I right?”

“Totally right Axis.” Pivot came on Fulcrum’s other side. “I bet first living thing you see will have you running the other way.”

“Hey!” The mech now squished in the middle shouted. “That’s not—it’s true but—I was talking about us getting assigned off the ship!” He wriggled out from between. “We’re techies, for Unicron’s sake!”

Axis grabbed the only slightly taller mech and turned him around as he tried to start walking away. “Wo, sigma, just relax mech. It’s not like every techie who ever worked on a real project, with real results that would directly help the war effort for real, ended up slagged. Besides,” he twisted Fulcrum toward the setting sun. “Shockwave’s lab it that way.”

“Most of them do though!” Fulcrum grumbled, but otherwise didn’t impede the threesomes trek onward.      

The walk wasn’t long. Axis, Fulcrum, and Pivot made their way into the cave that held the scientist’s new lab. They didn’t really know what had happened to his last one, but some of the vehicons said it had to do with the terrifying predicon they’d seen a few times and the Autobots. After a certain point, the darkness of the cave began to lessen and they came out in a decent sized cavern filled with awesome/scary/odd—depending which of the three were asked—machines. And, eclipsing it all like a metrotitan, was the great scientist himself: Shockwave.

“At last, you three have arrived.” He intoned in a monotints voice. “Come closer and tell me your designations and individual serial numbers.” From the moment they were onlined, technicons were taught to follow orders.      

“Axis.” Axis said walking forward, even he cowered slightly in the warrior-scientist’s presence. “612.”

“Fulcrum.” Fulcrum barely got the word out and he shuffled forward. “613.”

“Pivot.” Pivot stepped up level with his two companions. “614.”

“Adequate.” Shockwave held out a data cube, dropping it into Axis’s open hands. “Wasting time would be… illogical. Your assignments until further notice.” He walked away, back to his work.

“This is going to be awesome.” Axis murmured, opening a wrist dataport.

“Sigma, we’re scrapped.” Fulcrum hooked his data transfer cable to the cube.  

“Life as a techie.” Pivot started uploading files.

Fulcrum had to admit, it wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. Sure, Axis, he, and Pivot worked their skidplates off recalibrating equipment that’d been damaged by—as they found out—the explosion caused by the Autobots when the Prime found Shockwave’s old lab and decided to obliterate the clones. Know the enemy had found a secret lab once didn’t comfort him much.

Today, he was doing the oh-so-delicate job of scraping hardened nanite gel from within a giant cloning tank. The strut-bending labor required him to climb inside of the huge cylinder and grind away at the chunks with a sander—techies didn’t get to have in-built tools. He didn’t mind the cramped quarters, it was actually a little comforting; back on _Nemesis_ , Axis, he, and Pivot tended to be assigned to internal circuitry repair, which involved spending extended periods of time tucked in the narrow voids between decks. But, hey, at least they were out of the soldiers’ way. 

Fulcrum worked steadily, gradually grinding away at the mess. In his mind, he called up a memory file of when Pivot had accidentally been given a vehicon-grade energon ration instead of the much diluted technicon-grade. He grinned at the memory. It’d taken Axis and him almost half a work cycle to chase their suddenly hyper-active team mate out of the crawl spaces and to a repair bay to get his systems flushed of the potent fuel. After that, Pivot started testing his ration’s concentration before consuming any of it.

With his attention diverted between cleaning and memory files, the technicon didn’t have processing space to stay overly aware of his surroundings. Thus, he didn’t notice his watcher until the specter came to him.

A scream fell from Fulcrum’s mouth when the cylinder he worked in was suddenly slammed into motion. He tumbled around like a speck of rust in a storm as the tank careened across the room, knocking small, unsecured, equipment out of its way. Finally, the tube came to rest against the far wall, and Fulcrum came to rest, staring out of the top of the tank and into the snapping jaws of a monster.

Sharp teeth and gnashing mandibles. The technicon’s world narrowed to focus only on the mechanical daspletosaurian. Before he was totally overcome by fear, Fulcrum realized that the monster couldn’t be nearly as large as the predicon up on the war ship. After this though, he took the only rout of defense available to a lone technicon: his storage pod. In the work of an instant, he was tucked snuggly within his alternant form—a protection as counterfeit as an armadillo’s on a freeway.  

Moments after transforming, the cylinder shattered as the daspletosaurian smashed one of its large, clawed, peds down upon it. Almost totally blind to the outside world, Fulcrum could only shudder in fear as the mechanical beast picked him up between its fangs. Then followed the most harrowing journey in Fulcrum’s limited life experiences. Luckily, the trip lasted only a few minutes.

With a thud, the beast dropped its prize at Shockwave’s peds. “Your performance was adequate. Return to your guard post.” The beast clomped away. “Transform.” The scientist demanded.

Trembling, Fulcrum returned to robot form. Wincing from the new dents to his fame, the technicon crouched at the imposing mech’s peds, hoping death came swiftly.

“Stand”

Gears slipping and grinding, Fulcrum came to an upright, if hunched, position.

“The time has come to reassign you.” That couldn’t be good. “You have proven your loyalty to the Decepticon cause and will soon serve a greater and fuller purpose.” The force shield to room lowered and Shockwave pushed the small technicon inside. “Megatron personally deemed his ever-faithful workers worthy of this next step toward victory.” The words frightened Fulcrum. He didn’t want to be part of anything bigger; Autobots target big things. “Your service will advance our glorious leader’s plans tenfold. All shall remember your sacrifice.”

SACRIFICE! Fulrum’s head shot up, his gaze finally taking in the room he’d walked into. This was surely where Shockwave worked on his more unwilling projects. Magnetized exam tables lined one wall, monitoring equipment another, and shelves of horrid tools lined the other visible wall. This was bad, very bad. Fulcrum knew this would happen, that coming to work for the scientist was a death sentence for disposable technicons. He almost ran. He’d turned, hoping to find a way past the looming mech, then he saw them.

Still as drained frames, Axis and Pivot floated in suspended stasis pods. A burst of static cracked from Fulcrum’s vocalizer at the sight of his companions.

“The Decepticon case thanks you.” Unfazed by his subject’s momentary escape attempt, Shockwave exported a wireless motor control override into the tiny mech’s processor. Instantly, the technicon crumpled to the ground, becoming an actless witness to what followed.

Carefully, gently even, Shockwave laid his three subjects on the exam table, spreading their limbs just so before activating the magnetic fields. 

The large mech surveyed his work, activating a recording drone. “Project K-con: initiating.”

 

          

“Hey Prime!” Smokescreen called from his position near a cave. “I’ve got active energon signals coming from down here.” The young bot nearly bouncing with anticipation as the rest of his compatriots trekked over.

“You sure?” Arcee asked skeptically. “Last time you said that it turned out to be a group of paleontologists digging up bones.”

“Arcee,” Optimus chided.

“Sorry Sir.”

“Besides,” Bulkhead examined Smokescreen’s readings. “It looks like there may be a bot down there.”

Bumblebee buzzed, tilting his head in question after he too looked at the readout.

“Bumblebee is right.” Optimus lead the way into the cavern. “Even as we speak, the signal is fading and with it, our chance of discovering the source of Megatron’s new weapon.”

The team followed without a word, each one recalling the string of near fatal attacks the Decepticons had made against them. During his last visit, Agent Fowler informed them that should a third explosion tare through a city the Autobots and Decepticons fought in, the US wouldn’t see any transformers as friendly. Thus, the team spent every available moment searching for Shockwave’s abandoned labs. Searching each for clues as to how the genius created the most devastating bomb in Cybertronian history.

Slowly, the team made their way down into the abandoned lab. With any luck, whoever was down here could be convince into sharing any information he knew about the scientist’s work. The going was slow and the signal grew ever fainter. Eventually, the group split up, hoping one of them would find the bot before it was too late.

Bumblebee found him. A tiny mech, prone in a puddle of his own energon. So much energon, Bumblebee doubted any bot could survive such a loss. Sending a data burst to Ratchet, Bumblebee splashed down in the pool of glowing fluid, rolling the mech over, searching for what had to be a horrible wound.

Within moments, Ratchet and Arcee skidded into the room. Without hesitation, Ratchet set about scanning the near empty frame. “There’s still a spark. It’s faint but there.” The medic took the mech from the young scout, intending to run back to the surface, summon a ground-bridge back to base, and set about saving the tiny bot’s life. But somehow, the energon covered Cybertronian wasn’t as far gone as Ratchet’s millennia of medical knowledge assumed.

With a jolt, orange optics lit up, locking on the insignias his saviors wore. “Die Autobots. Die.” He rasped and transformed.

“Run!” Arcee yelled, recognizing the bomb.

The ensuing explosion shock the cave system, collapsing passages and opening great fissures. The Autobots barely made it out of the destruction.  

 

 

Slowly, painfully, Fulcrum regained consciousness. Only one optic flickered to life. Interesting, he hadn’t expected to have a frame after entering the Allspark. Maybe this wasn’t the Allspark then. He only had a spark fragment after all. Maybe he’d passed into limbo. Maybe this was Unicron’s spark. Slowly, arm barely functioning, Fulcrum traced the hole the blast made in him. Well, it wasn’t really a hole, more a gap between his fractured spark case and hip joints, spanned only by a twisted back strut.

Sudden sounds interrupted Fulcrum’s musings. Slowly, his gaze drifted over to where rocks were sliding down as something shoved its through the fallen ruble. As the source of the falling rocks climbed into view, the technicon realized he hadn’t died but now wished he had.

Shockwave’s pet daspletosaurian scrambled into the ruble filled cavern. Twice before, the beast tracked him down after an escape attempt form the scientist’s new lab. Apparently not even taring open his own fuel tanks and detonating was enough to get away.

“Please.” The word was barely a whisper, more a gasp. “Please.” Was all Fulcrum could say as the creature leaned down to smell at him. The now resigned mech fully expect the beast to take him in its jaws and trek back to its master. However, it nudged him. Snout pushing at his shoulder as if it were trying to rouse him. Getting no response, it stepped back.

Maybe there was such a thing as good luck after all. Fulcrum hoped against hope the creature thought he had died and would just leave. Dying here was better than going back. But the thing didn’t leave, it just watched him for what felt like hours. Then, the most startling thing happened.

It transformed.

If Fulcrum had the energy, he would have screamed. A hulking mech now crouched by him, thick digit poking incessantly at his scorched shoulder joints.

“Up.” It rumbled.

“No.” Gasped the damaged mech.

“Up.” Poke. “Up.” Poke. “Up.”

Fulcrum didn’t answer, his spark pulsing painfully with each jab at his shoulder.

“Weak.” The heavily armored bot huffed.

  The technicon almost wanted to laugh. Weak?! Even at full power, ten technicons couldn't hold down a single vehicon. One without fuel and barely any back strut? Of course he was weak!

The bot paced around the scorched cave as if thinking. Finally, it returned to Fulcrum. “Me Grimlock.” It said, kneeling. “Me Grimlock warrior.” Not so gently, it scooped up the broken techie. “Him bomb no warrior. Him bomb weak. Him Shockwave crush weakness. Me Grimlock strong. Me Grimlock protect bomb.” With that, Grimlock scrambled back through the mostly collapsed passageways and out into the night.   

     

 

   

   

 

**Author's Note:**

> I may write more with this one day. If you want me to, please say so and give some ideas.
> 
> I can totally see Missfire as some accident prone Vehicon.


End file.
